boro-glass biodegrading over da next few yrs?

[jes]

Good day,

I was searching around but didnt come up with much and sometimes if you ask the right question the right someone might have just researched this and those who wanna know can know more.....

When will the glass biodegrade? or to rephrase that =-----> How long will our art glass objects we create be here on earth?????

I once heard that after a million years!!! is that accurate and can someone cite or document the source so it can be officially cited for all universal purposes?

thank you, respectfully, :-J es

[somewhere]

well different glasses have different vulnerabilities. Moretti not so long you will see it lose it's luster and become mat in your lifetime. Borosilicate glass is very durable and will out last some of the glass found in Egyptian tombs. To give it an exact date I can not do but a million years sounds reasonable.

[hoosierglass]

a big group/board time capsule would be cool


everyone throw a piece in. you can have these things set up with your local gov. they will even let you mark it some places, so that it is sure to be found.


just a thought

[bzglass]

Someone once said that boro glass work will out last diamonds! And diamonds last forever.

[goldmanglass]

ive heard soft glass takes about 3 million years to slump at room temp. I'm sure thats based on some theoretical math so who really knows...

If noone drops it in 100 years, thats still pretty fuking lucky. Nothing last forever, take pics...

[Robert Mickelsen]

ive heard soft glass takes about 3 million years to slump at room temp. I'm sure thats based on some theoretical math so who really knows...
This is false. Glass of any kind will not "slump" over any period of time. It can devitrify, crack, or even biodegrade (probably another word for devitrify), but it can never "slump" at room temp.

- RAM

[menty666]

This is false. Glass of any kind will not "slump" over any period of time. It can devitrify, crack, or even biodegrade (probably another word for devitrify), but it can never "slump" at room temp.

- RAM

What if your room were a kiln? Mmmhmmm...snap. ;)

I wonder if they found any glass pieces from the Pompey excavations, speaking of kiln like room temps.

[HOSS]

What if your room were a kiln? Mmmhmmm...snap. ;)

I wonder if they found any glass pieces from the Pompey excavations, speaking of kiln like room temps.

If I'm not mistaken, Pompeii was buried in ash, not lava... :puzzled:

In theory something like a simple boro spoon buried in the back yard today could survive intact a lot more than a million years. In fact barring any "unnatural" intervention (someone/something digging it up), or something cataclysmic like a direct hit by an asteroid or nuke, I'd think it would have a good chance of surviving until our sun explodes and disintegrates the earth in a few BILLION years.


a big group/board time capsule would be cool

I think a melting pot time capsule is a great idea. Just make sure it gets buried in a geologically stable area that will be around awhile (As in, nowhere near the west coast, which could become the new Atlantis any day now.) ;)

[menty666]

If I'm not mistaken, Pompeii was buried in ash, not lava... :puzzled:


Hmm..good point. Darn you!!!!

[raven sun]

ive heard soft glass takes about 3 million years to slump at room temp. I'm sure thats based on some theoretical math so who really knows...
actually, its based on real world observation...:crazy:

[Jeremy D.N.]

actually, its based on real world observation...:crazy:

you mean those wonky old windows? those are made out of spun glass, so there are always thinner and thicker bits. think, those windows have only been around a couple hundo years max, but theres all this victorian era crystal and pirate rum bottles still intact and not slumped from way before.

[rustyglass]

This is false. Glass of any kind will not "slump" over any period of time. It can devitrify, crack, or even biodegrade (probably another word for devitrify), but it can never "slump" at room temp.

- RAM

Although none of us will be around to know the real answer to this, Im glad it came up because Ive been misquoting you for years now...

I can remember you telling me in a class that a cup we were looking at is slumping as we look at it, just at a VERY slow rate... and said that maybe 10,000 yrs is what it would take to lose its shape..

Not calling you out, just curious if I imagined that, or if that was your belief and some new info came to light that changed your opinion.

[Bro-crispy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass

see "behavior of antique glass".

[mer]

Although none of us will be around to know the real answer to this, Im glad it came up because Ive been misquoting you for years now...

I can remember you telling me in a class that a cup we were looking at is slumping as we look at it, just at a VERY slow rate... and said that maybe 10,000 yrs is what it would take to lose its shape..

Not calling you out, just curious if I imagined that, or if that was your belief and some new info came to light that changed your opinion.

not sure when your class was but he told us the same thing he said above when i took his class in 2003. i think it's robin's favorite myth to dispel.

great class by the way.

[FredLight]

actually, its based on real world observation...:crazy:

So, you are implying someone has been watching the same piece of glass for 3 million years?

Some people are still tossing around outdated theories, and I still get people trying to pass them on to me. I usually tell them to hit up the Wiki.

There are plenty of new articles and books out there to replace these theories.

Read up, move on, pass it on.

[bzglass]

So, you are implying someone has been watching the same piece of glass for 3 million years?



Well yes^, and I was also able to see that the chicken actually came before the egg!! I just wish I would taken an interest in glass back when the Egyptians began figuring it all out. I would have mad crazy skills by now.

[Greymatter Glass]

Here's my thinking based on some college physics classes I took, and an amateur understanding of chemistry... Since glass has no natural compression limit, (resulting in failure) if you were to put it under a very high compression for a long enough period it would deform at room temperature...sort of.

To the naked senses it would be room temp, but on a molecular level all the pressure equals friction, and the bonds between molecules would occasionally heat up, allowing the glass to "slip" at those bonds and ever so slowly deform. "Failure" is a catastrophic collapse of the structure as a whole. Deformation is acceptable, a good example would be rubber.... it DOES have a point where it can no longer take compression without failure....but before it gets there it will deform. Glass would just keep absorbing the compressive force, but it has to go somewhere, and that somewhere is heat.

Eventually the force going in would outbalance the glasses natural ability to shed heat, and you'd end up with a ball of molten glass... but it would still be glass.


But at room temperature, with little "natural" forces compressing it, I can't see anything but math suggesting it would deform in any valid time frame. Hundreds of trillions of trillions of billions of years doesn't matter.


now to the OP...

Depending on the atmophere/enviornment glass will break down pretty quick, certainly in less than millions of years, even boro... but it's nothing I would consider "bio" degradation.... more mechanical and chemical degradation. "bio" really suggests organic processes... like worms eating it, bacterial and enzymatic actions, even solar (UV/thermal) action. Most glass used by artists is biologically inert.

What's going to prevent a glass object from surviving 1,000,000+ years? In a sealed and/or buried environment corrosion, elemental decay, and geological / seismic activity would be the culprits. Additionally erosion if exposed on the surface in an open environment.

I would honestly be surprised if a glass object, intentionally made, could last more than 100,000 years and still be identifiable. Maybe if you made a glass object large enough... like the scale of the Great Pyramids in Egypt... but even those are but a dull glimmer of what they were scant thousands of years ago. There may still be glass, but would it matter if that glass is in billions of microscopic fragments blown to every corner of the Earth?

I will concede that in a theoretical vacuum, deprived of all natural external stimuli, there's probably nothing in glass that would cause it to ever degrade beyond the natural half life of stable elements, none of which I think are measured in anything less than multiple billions of years ... and really that relies on external radiation... which we've already taken away so yeah.... but by that standard, pretty much EVERYTHING would last forever.

ok.. time to do something else :P

-Doug

[Flux]

If it's stable enough to be used in the vitrification process to contain somewhat spent nuclear material, something buried in the back yard may well last until the next major evolutionary branch of hominid is established.

[HOSS]

Interesting take on that one Doug, thanks! :D

[FredLight]

C'mon Doug.....What happened to infractions for the extremely uninformed?

Matter of fact, you can give me one for asking.

Oh wait, BROWN'S GAS! There I said it.

Carry on.

[goldmanglass]

Oh wait, BROWN'S GAS! There I said it.

Carry on.

I heard that shit will someday replace oil, gasoline, oxygen, propane, and has enough nutrients to keep an active person nourished and hydrated for 3 million years! Doug, arent you a distributer??

[jes]

YES, wow, more interesting then I knew....

I am writing a paper of sorts so I want to be able to document, quote or cite the factual! I found a site on the web that talks about hazord particals storage with glass and seen it say something like 10,000 years. I went to find it again to show everyone and document the source and cant find it anywhere now!

I wonder if they didnt say 10,000 yrs because thats longer then anything else they could find to contain their sh** or should I say our radioactive SH** since we are all spinnin on this thing together.

On a lighter note...
Often times when someone buys a real nice marble or something & I can just see them in-love with it or get something nice for their kids, I will funnily say something like (if you take good care of that it could last forever) then a little pause then say (or at least for a million years) and I feel deep down allot of that is true, whos to really say it cant under every exact right circumstance?

Now it makes me wonder if I should try learn'n to use milli chips if they will outlive a ti pen's markings in the real super long run!!!

Sorry about the train or pogo stick of thought going in different directions but I would still LOVE to find a quotable source to document the true life of borsilicate glass hollow or solid. Going off any reasonable assumption wont cut it in this particular writing its for...

**** So everyone who had an answer could you please try and document the source so it can be cited in an official paper. Only if possible!


Thank you for the interest everyone Knowledge is Important!!!!

OH ya, just to make sure, do people think the first workings of glass on this planet happened in Egypt or In the Syrian/Lebanon region????

miigwetch, jes

[Greymatter Glass]

I would suspect glass was an example of concurrent discovery. The first known use of glass as a man made object is Egyptian enamels, the first controlled batch furnaces were probably Syrian. Before that I suspect people discovered they could melt obsidian. Before that I suspect people discovered glazed fire pits, but didn't understand why it was happening.

Asking "who invented glass" is akin to asking who invented the wheel, smelting copper, etc... it's a "fact" lost to history, but you're deff. in the right time and region.


As for citations... a few I've read and used in school...

Martin, Gerry Glass - A World History
Ellis, William S Glass : from the first mirror to fiber optics, the story of the substance that changed the world
Pfänder, Heinz G Schott guide to glass

Those offer some good general info.


I did some research on vitrification of nuclear waste and other hazardous materials and found a few online research articles at school that were done by professors at UNM, I don't know if they're accessible off campus.

Development of sinter glass formulations for radioactive waste streams and sample characterization : technical report on phase I : analysis of problems and review of literature, August to October 1996 / prepared for British Nuclear Fuels plc by Werner Lutze and Weilang Gong and Rodney C. Ewing

Online there's a lot of good information as well...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield
http://glassproperties.com/references/pnnl.htm

As always, google is your friend. Search for Vitrification of nuclear waste...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Vitrification+of+nuclear+waste

[jes]

WOWZA Thanks MR. Greymatter, that was a wealth of info I pasted 3 paragraphs on here, it is documented that boro glass is used to contain bad things for many many years it goes on and on too!!! but I am satisfied with this result and feel confident in citing this as matter of factual... & thats what I was after!!! case solved for me....

The glass inside a cylinder is usually a black glossy substance. All this work (in the United Kingdom) is done using hot cell systems. The sugar is added to control the ruthenium chemistry and to stop the formation of the volatile RuO4 containing radio ruthenium. In the west, the glass is normally a borosilicate glass (similar to Pyrex), while in the former Soviet bloc it is normal to use a phosphate glass. The amount of fission products in the glass must be limited because some (palladium, the other Pt group metals, and tellurium) tend to form metallic phases which separate from the glass. Bulk vitrification uses electrodes to melt soil and wastes, which are then buried underground.[34] In Germany a vitrification plant is in use; this is treating the waste from a small demonstration reprocessing plant which has since been closed down.[30][35]
[edit]
"Long term management of waste
See also: Economics of new nuclear power plants#Waste disposal
The time frame in question when dealing with radioactive waste ranges from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years,[38] according to studies based on the effect of estimated radiation doses.[39] Researchers suggest that forecasts of health detriment for such periods should be examined critically.[40] Practical studies only consider up to 100 years as far as effective planning[41] and cost evaluations[42] are concerned. Long term behavior of radioactive wastes remains a subject for ongoing research projects.[43]
[edit]"
Because some radioactive species have half-lives longer than one million years, even very low container leakage and radionuclide migration rates must be taken into account.[44] Moreover, it may require more than one half-life until some nuclear materials lose enough radioactivity to cease being lethal to living things. A 1983 review of the Swedish radioactive waste disposal program by the National Academy of Sciences found that country’s estimate of several hundred thousand years—perhaps up to one million years—being necessary for waste isolation “fully justified.”[45]

[FredLight]

Thanks, Doug. GREAT references!